Global Judaism: Diversity Across the Jewish World

Catalog description

Scattered across the globe over the course of millennia, Jews' diverse histories and environments have given rise to a great range of religious, cultural and social forms. Using ethnographies as our primary texts, we will think critically and comparatively about Judaism and Jewishness in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Along our journey, we examine how Jews have navigated their experiences as minorities in their many diaspora homelands, and how they have they adapted their cultural and religious practices to the various environments in which they have found themselves. In addition to exploring their Jewishness vis-à-vis others, we also examine questions of exclusion and belonging that Jews have faced as they have encountered each another in recent decades through tourism, mass migration, globalization, and the internet. How do the world's varied Jewish groups - who are of different skin colors, who speak different languages, and who carry different historical memories - navigate ethnic divides, race relations, and religious diversity? Should we speak of a single Jewish religion and Jewish people at all? Offered as ANTH 255 , ETHS 255 , JWST 255 and RLGN 255 . Counts as a CAS Global & Cultural Diversity course.